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Viral post saying hospitals are full ‘fake news’
Construction of mountain tunnel starts in July
Group calls for abolition of NTF-Elcac anew
Councilor sees nearly P32-M collection if online sabong legalized

Viral post saying hospitals are full ‘fake news’

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:39 AM PDT

AN OFFICIAL from the Davao City Health Office (CHO) called the viral social media post saying that some private hospitals are now experiencing an overwhelming increase of patients due to a surge of Covid-19 cases as "fake news."

This was the response of CHO Acting Head Dr. Ashley Lopez when SunStar Davao asked through a text message on Thursday afternoon, May 20, 2021.

Several online posts from an unidentified source with a message "A Plea from our Infectious Disease Experts" dated May 19, 2021 have been circulating online.

The post stated: "Good morning. We are under surge conditions already. Please exercise maximum infection prevention practices. Please refrain from going around. May mga cases na po na resorts, and out of town travels ang exposures including eating out or together with friends and entertaining visitors at home. [sic]"

"Puno na po ang SPMC. Ang DDH (Davao Doctors Hospital) puno na din [sic]," it added.

Some netizens, through the comment section, also shared that some private hospitals are now experiencing a surge of admitted patients.

Lopez has yet to provide additional details, but said in a radio interview on Wednesday, May 19, that the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) is not yet experiencing an overspill.

He said, though, that they already sent a memorandum to all city private hospitals to start preparing their beds and facilities for possible increase in Covid-19 patients.

"Last Monday, nagpadala mi'g memo sa 'tong mga (we already sent memo to all) private hospitals na (that) we have to open up in augmentation in case lang mag-overspill lang ang (there will be an overspill of cases at) SPMC," Lopez said in an interview on 87.5 FM Davao City Disaster Radio.

Based on the May 19 data of SPMC, 28 of 35 of the intensive care unit (ICU) beds are occupied, while 253 of 352 of the ward beds are occupied.

DDH, as of Thursday, May 20, has not yet issued a statement.

At present, SPMC is the primary Covid-19 referral hospital in the city.

With the recent downtrend of Covid-19 cases in late February and March, health authorities have temporarily stopped admitting Covid-19 patients in private hospitals.

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Construction of mountain tunnel starts in July

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:38 AM PDT

THE Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) announced that the first long-distance mountain tunnel in the Philippines with an approximate length of 2.3 kilometers (km) will be constructed in Davao City this July.

In a press release, DPWH said it is about to roll out the construction of two 2.3-km tunnel, which corresponds to the central portion of the Davao City Bypass Construction Project in Southern Mindanao financed by Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the Government of Japan through Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

Public Works Secretary Mark Villar said that essential machinery has started to arrive in the Philippines for the road tunnel construction, which is expected to develop Filipino skilled workers with new technological know-how.

Villar said despite the major challenges encountered due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bypass Project has secured Japan's official development assistance (ODA) financing with a Special Terms for Economic Partnership (Step) Loan from Jica under Loan Agreements signed in June 2020.

In his report to Villar, Undersecretary for Unified Project Management Office (Upmo) Operations Emil K. Sadain said that tunneling works using specialized equipment, such as drill jumbo, concrete spraying machine, and articulated dump hauler, is targeted to commence by first week of July 2021.

Sadain said four units of drill jumbo and four units of concrete spraying machine will simultaneously work at the north and south portal to complete two 2.3-km long tunnels with a height of eight meters and a width of 10 meters through the new Austrian tunneling method or sprayed concrete lining method.

The tunnel is part of Contract Package 1-1 covering 10.7 kilometers of four-lane highway awarded in the amount of P13.230 billion to the joint venture companies of Shimizu Corporation, Ulticon Builders Inc., and Takenaka Civil Engineering & Construction Co Ltd.

The contract package with 37 months duration also covers the construction of bridges in three locations and a 7.9-km long cut and fill road.

The entire bypass road has a total length of 45.5 kilometers, and will be accomplished in six packages: from the Davao-Digos section of the Pan-Philippine Highway in Barangay Sirawan in Davao City going to Davao-Panabo section of the Pan-Philippine Highway in Barangay J.P. Laurel, Panabo City.

The bypass project will cut travel time of one hour and 44 minutes via Pan-Philippine Highway Diversion Road to 49 minutes.

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Group calls for abolition of NTF-Elcac anew

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:36 AM PDT

A NON-GOVERNMENT organization (NGO) is calling anew for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) after its spokesperson Lorraine Badoy "launches another threat" to pursue the case against "Bakwit School 7," whose charges were recently dismissed.

Badoy said in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, May 18, 2021, that they will assist the Lumad parents, whose children were reportedly kidnapped and brought to the retreat house of the Societas Verbi Divini Philippines Southern Province, University of San Carlos-Talamban campus in Cebu City, to file a motion for reconsideration.

"'Wag sila masyadong magdidiwang kasi butas na butas sila dito (They should not celebrate just yet because we noticed many loopholes here)," the NTF-Elcac official said.

In a forwarded statement, the Save Our Schools Network (SOS) said Badoy's statement "shows malice and vindictiveness to persecute the Bakwit School 7 following the dismissal of trumped-up charges against them."

Earlier, the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor (OPP) of Davao del Norte in Tagum City ordered the immediate release of the "Bakwit School 7" after it dismissed the criminal charges filed against them by the Philippine National Police Anti-kidnapping Group (AKG) on Friday, May 14.

The "Bakwit School 7" is a collective name of the respondents of the case, identified individually as Chad Errol Booc, Segundo Lagatos Melong, Benito Dalim Bay-ao, Moddie Langayed Mansimoy-at, Esmelito Oribawan, Roshelle Mae Porcadilla, and Jomar Benag.

SOS said they were arrested by the Philippine National Police (PNP) "without a warrant" in a raid last February 15 in the USC campus in Cebu.

A total of 19 Lumad students and minors were taken in custody by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)-Central Visayas.

"Badoy and the NTF-Elcac's insistence that the students that the PNP mauled and detained were kidnapped by Lumad leaders and teachers only show that they only believe in their own lies. For that, we condemn the NTF-Elcac as they have destroyed the students' rights to education through red-tagging and militarizing the DepEd that led to the closure of Lumad schools in Mindanao," the group said.

"They will not stop at nothing to silence the Lumad who are fighting for their ancestral domain against state and corporate intervention," the group added.

SOS said it is calling for the abolition of NTF-Elcac, stressing that the task force "is nothing but lies and evil that destroys the spirit of solidarity that it has done to the Lumad, to the community pantry, to rights advocates."

"They don't deserve a single peso from us taxpayers already burdened by the pandemic. They don't deserve to operate amidst our struggles," it said.

According to its Facebook page, SOS is a network of child-focused NGOs, church-based groups and other stakeholders advocating for children's right to education

There have been moves to defund Elcac as several lawmakers joined calls to defund it, including Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Senator Joel Villanueva, who urged the realignment of the task force's current budget to the government's social amelioration program.

Drilon said there is no need to wait until the 2022 budget deliberations to defund the task force since President Rodrigo Duterte has the power to realign the budget.

At the House of Representatives, Gabriela Women's Party Representative Arlene Brosas proposed that the P19.4-billion budget of the task force be considered among the sources of funding for the proposed P10,000 cash aid for the poor under the Bayanihan 3 bill.

The task force's budget consists of P16.44 billion for the Support to the Barangay Development Program under the Local Government Support Fund and around P3 billion in operational expenses.

However, Davao Oriental Governor Nelson Dayanghirang, who is also the chairperson of the Regional Peace and Order Council of Region 11 (RPOC-Davao), said in a previous statement that defunding the P19-billion budget of the NTF-Elcac will affect barangays who had fought to clear their communities from communist influence and insurgency.

"We appeal to those who are calling to defund the Elcac to open their hearts and minds to the plea of our people. Defunding the [Elcac] would be a huge disservice to these barangays who fought long and hard to clear their communities from communist influence and insurgency that has brought nothing but fear and poverty aggravated by violence," he said.

Signed into law by Duterte in December 2018, Executive Order 70 created the NTF-Elcac that institutionalized "a whole-of-nation approach in obtaining exclusive and sustainable peace, giving the government an effective solution against communist terrorists."

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Councilor sees nearly P32-M collection if online sabong legalized

Posted: 20 May 2021 04:35 AM PDT

THE Davao City Government is projected to collect nearly P32 million from amusement tax once the online cockfighting (sabong) will be legalized in the city, a councilor said.

During the 19th regular session on Tuesday, May 18, Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang presented his item aiming to legalize e-sabong (electronic cockfighting) as a mode of betting and amusement for increased local revenues.

Dayanghirang, who is the committee chairperson of the games and amusement, said the City's amusement tax collection on the proposed ordinance has a projected collection of P31,937,500.

He explained this based on the proposed P250 amusement tax collection per sultada round of a cockfight for a year.

"Before the pandemic, we collect 10-percent per ticket, but in this case, considering there are no entrance fees, we will be collecting the 250 pesos per sultada in lieu of the 10-percent amusement tax," Dayanghirang said.

During the session, the councilor reported the city's collection of amusement taxes in cockfighting for the past two years. In 2019, the city collected a total of P14,615,135.10. The collection in 2020, however, plunged to P4,106.872.60 when the Covid-19 pandemic hit the city, resulting in the prohibition of all cockfighting events to prevent mass gathering.

City Treasurer's Office (CTO) representative Mary Emilou Limpot, during the committee hearing, said their office expressed apprehensions regarding the implementation or collection of the taxes in the original draft of the proposed ordinance.

Limpot said the nature of e-sabong being electronic has implications as to administrative matters, particularly in the determination and tracking of the gross receipts from bets coming from the city.

She said local taxes are territorial and can only be levied to transactions that take place inside the territorial jurisdiction of the city.

In response to CTO's apprehensions, the committee said they will propose two ordinances: one for local application and one for national application.

Dayanghirang said the two ordinances uniformly provides for two kinds of taxes to be collected by the City Government: franchise tax, which is 87 percent of one percent of the annual gross receipts derived by the franchisee/operator from the pasa or commission rate on bets made, through electronic means, within the city; and amusement taxes.

In terms of franchise tax, he said there is no available data on projected collections as gross receipts of the operations are yet to be determined in the future.

Dayanghirang also said his committee recommended the enactment of two ordinances: including permission to allow live broadcast and data streamed cockfighting activities and derbies operation within the city of Davao and allowing e-sabong by amending existing provision of Ordinance 5003, series of 1997 or the cockfighting code of Davao City.

During the committee hearing, Daniel Cecilio, Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (Pagcor) representative, said there is a regulatory framework for electronic sabong (eSabong).

Cecilio said eSabong is regulated by Pagcor where certain financial considerations are imposed before an entity can engage in online sabong operations.

He said that as of now, there are no legal operations of eSabong yet.

Cecilio said according to the framework, live cockfighting in cockpit arenas are regulated by local government units, while eSabong is regulated by Pagcor.

Lawyer Prince Ever Parel, United Association of Cockpit Owners and Operations of the Philippines Inc. (UACOOP) representative, said during the hearing that they are intending to operate in the city.

Parel said they have already approved franchise ordinances in their favor in other areas such as Davao del Sur, Surigao del Sur, and Manila.

The councilor said he will pass a general e-sabong ordinance without any named franchise as any interested party still has to apply to the City Mayor's Office.

Dayangharang, meanwhile, deferred to the next regular session, and invite other stakeholders including representatives from Pagcor, and Business Bureau.

Dayanghirang passing the ordinance will attract legitimate operators and create a world-class cockfighting event that can be marketed globally.

The councilor previously said that he is lobbying the ordinance in the City Council because aside from the clamor coming from cockfighting bettors, this will also allow the city to generate additional revenue due.

Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, who is firm in banning sabong (cockfighting), admitted in a previous interview that she is planning to allow online sabong in a bid to generate additional revenue for the city after it decided to reduce local fees and charges in favor of the local businesses which are going through hard times due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Duterte-Carpio added that health protocols will not be violated as bettors can do it within their residences. (Vener Zygmond O. Rebuelta, Addu Intern)

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Magnificent News

Thursday, May 20, 2021

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End of Summer Sale ☀️😎

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